Essential anthology of writings from 1978-1998 published in the periodical Umbrella.

“It is hard to believe that more than twenty years have passed since the first issue of Umbrella was issued as a fledgling newsletter catering to the ever-changing vicissitudes of contemporary visual art, especially that of artist books, mail art, video art, rubber-stamps, audio art, and everything else that was considered not very important in the realm of the nearly new ‘market’ which came with the eighties and the boom in contemporary and modern art. … Many of these articles respond to a conference, symposium, a book art exhibition, all referring to date-sensitive events. But in a strange way, it also marks a trace of a historic moment, one in which there was a vitality and an energy, in which book publishers, resource collectors, multi-faceted artists, and curators did whatever seemed right at the moment. Many of our colleagues are gone, the publishers have quit their businesses, and alternative spaces and foundations which nourished their work are no longer extant. So read these chapters as if you were reading ‘you are there’ historic moments, traces of memory, and the markers in the history of alternative in the contemporary art world of the past twenty years.” — Judith A. Hoffberg (1934-2009) from book’s foreword.

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